"First Love, Last Rites" by Ian McEwan

This spring marks the fiftieth anniversary since the publication of Ian McEwan's first book. Twenty more would follow, including some really superb novels. "First Love, Last Rites" is a collection of eight short stories which all deal, one way or another, with disappointment in a group of characters' first experience of love. 'Sex' might be a better description than 'love' in most cases, but the voices and situations described are hugely varied.

These stories were written in the early 1970s when Ian McEwan was studying towards his MA at the University of East Anglia under the guidance of the great Malcolm Bradbury and they are well worth reading. The difference fifty years made between the manner in which authors were able to write about our intimate lives was extraordinary.

While Virginia Woolf wrote about such matters in metaphor and Somerset Maugham left everything to the imagination, by 1975 Ian McEwan was able to spell everything out very graphically. The stories here were written a dozen years or so after the law changed via the Obscene Publications Act 1959 and the subsequent trial concerning the publication of an unexpurgated version of 'Lady Chatterley's Lover', and by the early 70s all censorship of sexual descriptions and the language used to describe them was over. Ian McEwan took full advantage and some aspects of these stories are a touch shocking to read, even today, and a bit sordid really. Or at least they shocked me.

But I have to concede that in all other respects they are very impressive. Striking and memorable images are conjured up, believable characters created and tight plots developed. Classic, well-written stories by one of the most respected British novelists of his generation.